Amy Brendmoen saw plenty of changes and challenges during her dozen years on the St. Paul City Council. Brendmoen represented the city’s 5th Ward for 12 years, starting in 2012. Six of those years, she was council president.
In the north-central part of the city, Ward 5 includes parts of the Como, North End and Payne-Phalen neighborhoods. It’s a diverse area, says Brendmoen, who retired from the city council last year.
“It’s wild,” she says. “There are very different neighborhoods with very different needs.”
Brendmoen and others were recognized with the Saint Paul Parks Conservancy’s 2024 “Golden Shovel” award for their work bringing the North End Community Center to fruition in Ward 5.
Brendmoen says the community center, which is expected to open in the fall, was a special project for her.
The North End population is 72 percent people of color, with 30 percent not born in the United States, Brendmoen says. Sixty-two percent of residents are under the age of 35 and half of those are under 17. The North End has no Salvation Army, no YMCA, no Boys and Girls Club and its one food shelf is closing, she says.
“Trying to get the community together is really difficult,” she says. “It’s been underrepresented for decades.”
When St. Bernard’s High School and Arlington Senior High School closed in 2010, “all of a sudden, the youthful energy was gone,” Brendmoen says. “It feels like sort of the heart got ripped out of the neighborhood.”
The North End needed a gathering space – a place for families and activities that fit the needs of the community.
The first step in planning for the community center was to meet with area leaders to ask, “What would you love to see here?” Brendmoen says.
A teaching kitchen, a flexible gym space, a teen center, a playground, picnic areas, parking, lighting, sepak takraw/badminton courts – ideas were refined and incorporated. There’s a stairway for people to hang out that includes phone charging plugs. The $20 million building features solar, geothermal cooling and heating.
And, of course, costs went up as the project moved forward. Brendmoen was committed to making it happen and finding funding.
It was expensive, she says. “I don’t care. This neighborhood deserves the best.”
Construction of the community center began in spring of 2023 near the Rice Street Library and across the park from Wellstone Elementary School.
“Rice Street should be like a mainstreet,” Brendmoen says. Improvements to Rice Street, along with the new North End Center “will transform the area for people who live there.”
She calls the community center her passion project and her legacy project.
In her time years on the city council, Brendmoen found that people want change, but are often averse to the change when it starts to happen. Planned improvements for the pavilion at Como Lake are a good example.
Plans are in the works to update the lakeside pavilion, which has struggled to keep a food vendor in the facility. Visitors watch performances on the pavilion stage with their backs to the lake and there’s no view of the water from the restaurant area.
While people agree change is needed at the pavilion, they often complain when moves are proposed, Brendmoen says. People don’t realize that the building, which was updated in 1992 is not historic. It’s a replica of the one built there in 1905.
Brendmoen, who now runs a consulting company and was recently appointed to St. Paul’s Port Authority, says she doesn’t miss her city council job. “I was ready to move on.”
She plans to stay involved in development.
“I know the system and I care about the city,” she says, adding “I think I thrive in a little chaos.”
Brendmoen encourages others to get involved and volunteer for projects that fit their passions.
“I feel like the need is great and varied. There’s absolutely something you can do.”
Article and photo by Kathy Berdan.